When a number of telephones are situated in a common open area, a situation often arises where the user of one of the ringing telephones does not answer. It is highly desirable for another individual within the area to utilize their own telephone to answer the incoming call for the other telephone. Within the prior art this has been accomplished by placing the telephones within the common area into a call pickup group. If a first telephone within the call pickup group is being rung, a user of a second telephone of the call pickup group can actuate a designated button on their telephone or dial a special code to answer the call that is directed to the first telephone.
The prior art pickup groups have functioned well with wired telephone sets. Such pickup groups are manually administered on the telecommunication switching system providing service for the telephones within the pickup group. In particular, the prior art pickup groups and their administration have functioned well for the traditional business environment where an employee is assigned a desk or a specific location and performs their principle work function at that telephone or location. The traditional environment is slowly changing. In the emerging business environment, individuals do not have a wired telephone but rather they have a wireless telephone that they carry with them at all times and that is their only telephone. In addition, employees during the course of a day perform many functions at different locations.